DVANZ

Falken Tire drivers Doug Van Den Brink and Vaughn Gitten, Jr. made their way to Dearborn,
Michigan, just outside of Detroit, to do a little “slide’n” on behalf of Ford Performance Parts
last week. The drifting demo/ride-along event was part of an “employee appreciation day”
that Ford’s marketing group put together in conjunction with Falken Tire.

“This is a real fun day.” Van Den Brink said. “Just as we did at Barrett-Jackson in February
of this year, Vaughn and I are getting a chance to bring the sport of Drifting to people who
may have never had the opportunity to see it “Live”. Although we weren’t able to bring my
competition car, the Ford guys brought out a really cool car for me to play with. From what I
understand, it’s basically a Shelby GT500 with the addition of just about every part possible
out of Ford’s Street Performance catalogue. What I can tell you for sure is this thing has
torque to the moon with it’s “blown” 5.4L 4-valve V8, awesome curb appeal with the Shelby
classic white w/blue stripes paint scheme and when combined with our Falken Azenis
RT-615’s, has cornering prowess that kept my passengers yelling for more”.

These “drift-demos” are beginning to become a real marketing and entertainment tool as
the sport of Drifting progresses. Unlike other types of competition cars, a drift car can build
excitement in arenas traditionally too small for other cars. A large oval-track or ¼ mile drag
strip simply isn’t needed to give “would be” drift fans the ride of a lifetime. Because drift
cars always carry two seats, drivers can take them on a short journey that many have only
dreamed of. This event (like all that Ford and Falken produce) had the crowd protected by
portable concrete walls and steel fencing and passengers protected in racing suits and
helmets.

Events like these are a real treat to do.” Doug added. “I love doing our competitions but
these demos are a reminder as to how much fun this sport really is to do and to see. The
crowd really eats it up with all the tire smoke, growling engines and cool cars. We get the
honor of signing a bunch of autographs, our representative companies get to spread some
goodwill towards their key people and everybody wins. My hope is that Vaughn and I get a
chance to do 15 or 20 of these next year.”

As the saying goes “there’s no time like the present”, Doug and Vaughn will be back in their
cars on October 15-18 for a command performance of their tandem-duals, as the two
drivers will bring their Mustangs to Nevada as the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company brings
their acclaimed auction and lifestyle event to the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino for the
first time. This is going to be a great event that no one is going to want to miss.

Next up for DVM will likely be the Formula D/US Drift Pro-Am Finals at VIR’s GT Live event
in which DVM is the 2-time defending champion with eyes towards making it a “3-pete”.
Keep up with all the team’s latest news at www.dvanz.com…

Photo’s courtesy of Charley Matus

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